On 60 Minutes this past Sunday, Maine Senator Angus King called Maine “a big small town.” When interviewer Jon Wertheim asks what he meant, King responds, “If you’re from Maine and you stop on the New Jersey Turnpike for gas, and the car next to you has a Maine plate on it– I guarantee within […]
Category: Building Bridges
In a world filled with distrust and discord, building and maintaining brand trust will be more important than ever in 2021’s customer service equation. Companies offering and delivering on trust promises will see increased customer loyalty and longevity along with beneficial effects of positive reviews and word-of-mouth. Companies coming up short in the trust arena […]
Where does customer service cross over into undeserved customer entitlement? A recent T-Mobile ad campaign got me thinking about this important distinction, with the “I want it all…and I want it now” theme. While competent, dedicated and sincere customer service needs to continue growing in this country, the opposite is true of our entitlement mentality, […]
As COVID continues to dominate our lives, customer crankiness is growing substantially. That makes the job of customer service specialists even more challenging. Consumers are not in a forgiving mood, as a recent article in MartechSeries.com (via PRNewswire) notes: “As the COVID-19 pandemic continues, more than 80% of consumers in the US expect customer support […]
Gotta hand it to Costco once again. Their growth continues healthily through the pandemic, largely because of their unwavering dedication to customer service (and their strong employee support doesn’t hurt either). And, this is despite ranking lower than some competitors in the convenience category, cited by a recent ZDNet.com report as a chief consumer buying […]
Heather Wilde, CTO at Roceteer, wrote an article in Inc. Magazine entitled, “What Working at a Call Center Taught Me About Customer Service…The customer may not always be right, but you can certainly treat them better.” The essence of her advice to customer service departments and reps is to act more like caring, concerned moms […]
Mom and pop customer service traits—most notably doing business with companies you like, respect and trust—are surfacing everywhere as drivers of loyalty and the bottom line. To make it work, companies must invest time, resources and, yes, money.
While Costco was listed first on my top mom and pop kudos list, there are many companies out there with similar attitudes and aptitudes. These companies, smaller in scope than Costco, come up just as large when it comes to taking care of customers/clients. I’ve already recognized these three in previous posts. I’m bringing them […]
As companies grow bigger and more global, customer service in many quarters is feeling more like dealing with a caring mom and pop enterprise than a mega-company. That’s clearly the attitude of such companies as Costco, which has been making me feel right at home since 1999. (Full disclosure: I’m an unabashed, biased Costcophile with […]
Amid COVID-19 retail carnage, Costco is managing to weather the storm well so far according to recent stock reports and recommendations. Its legendary customer service likely is leading the pack of positives. Whether or not such pandemic-related policies as mandatory masks and special hours from 9-10 AM Monday-Friday for seniors and shoppers with disabilities or […]
